Albuquerque Journal

High Schools To Use Block System
By Andrea Schoellkopf, Journal Staff Writer

Albuquerque's 13 traditional high schools will all switch to a new seven-period block schedule next year, as approved Tuesday by principals.
    For more than a year, Albuquerque Public Schools has been studying how to find one comprehensive bell schedule that would make it easier for students to attend college classes or make a seamless transfer to another school.
    High schools now have five different schedules, with Manzano, Sandia, La Cueva and Del Norte under a traditional six-period day and the remaining nine under four kinds of block schedules.
    The plan adopted by principals Tuesday is based on a Los Alamos High schedule, with students taking four classes a day and seven classes over a two-day period.
    Six of the seven classes will be roughly 100 minutes long, allowing more time for projects and writing assignments, APS chief academic officer Linda Sink said. The seventh class will be roughly 50 minutes and will be held daily, allowing students who aren't proficient in math or reading to take a remedial course. Others could take electives, such as languages.
    A group of principals is working out details, such as adding a period for students to meet with teacher advisers.
    The new schedule, to start in August, would coincide with new state graduation requirements of at least 24 classes during a student's high school career, Sink said.
    The schedules also would require all schools to start at roughly the same time.
    Highland High principal Nikki Dennis, whose school has been on a college-type semester block system since the 1990s, said the adjustment shouldn't be a burden.
    "I surely understand the need to have all the high schools on the same schedule," Dennis said. "I don't think it will be difficult. Some schools will struggle with the long blocks of time, but we've been doing it a long time."